CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


I  AM  not  sure  that  Education  is  a  legitimate  topic  for  investigation 
and  discussion  by  this  Academy.  And  yet  it  is  both  a  science  and  an 
art ;  a  science  of  definite  principles,  well-organized  methods,  and  de- 
monstrable results ;  and  an  art  of  measureless  practical  importance. 
But  however  this  may  be,  the  question  is  no  longer  an  open  one,  but 
has  been  decided  for  us  by  the  authority  of  our  venerable  ex-Presi- 
dent, who,  at  one  of  our  recent  meetings,  read  an  elaborate  essay, 
which  he  has  since  published,  on  "  Classical  and  Utilitarian  Studies." 
That  Essay,  learned,  witty,  and  ingenious,  as  everything  is  which 
comes  from  his  pen,  is  further  remarkable  because  it  is  written  by  an 
excellent  classical  scholar,  and  it  contains  a  sweeping  condemnation 
of  Classical  Studies,  especially  when  used  as  an  organon  of  education. 
As  Dr.  Bigelow  has  forgotten  more  Greek  than  I  ever  learned,  he 
will  pardon  me  for  saying  that  he  has  indirectly  and  unconsciously 
refuted  himself,  since  his  paper,  as  appears  from  the  very  face  of  it, 
could  not  have  been  written  except  by  a  proficient  in  the  very  studies 
which  it  condemns.  And  this  Essay  has  gone  forth  to  the  world,  not 
only  with  all  the  weight  of  authority  which  belongs  to  its  authorship, 
but  with  the  implied  sanction  of  this  Academy,  if  some  voice,  how- 
ever feeble,  be  not  here  raised  to  controvert  the  doctrine  which  it 
teaches. 

And  what  is  this  doctrine  ?  Speaking  briefly,  it  is,  that  this  bus- 
tling and  practical  age  in  which  we  live,  —  this  age  of  steam-engines, 
railroads,  gas-lights,  and  Atlantic  telegraphs,  when  the  physical  sci- 
ences are  growing  with  a  rapidity  that  takes  away  one's  breath,  and 
startling  us  with  new  wonders  every  day,  —  has  no  time  or  thought  to 
waste  on  dead  languages,  obsolete  sciences,  or  works  of  literature  and 
art  which  served  well  enough  to  amuse  the  world  when  it  was  in  its 


4 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


infancy.  The  time  has  come  for  the  navigator  to  take  a  new  depart- 
ure. Efface  the  record  of  all  that  was  said  or  done  before  the  year 
1500,  or  thereabouts.  Throw  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics  overboard ; 
abandon  even  "  the  intellectual  pursuits  "  of  those  who  wrote  them ; 
stick  to  "  utilitarian  science  and  studies,  connected  with  practical,  ma- 
terial, tangible,  and  useful  things."  "For  more  than  five  thousand 
years,  —  from  the  beginning  of  history,  until  about  three  centuries 
ago,  —  the  human  race  had  made  little  progress  in  anything  which  we 
now  regard  as  constituting  material  welfare,  or  growth  in  power, 
knowledge,  and  means  of  happiness."  "  A  few  of  the  last  generations 
have  not  only  excelled,  but  greatly  distanced,  the  collective  perform- 
ances of  all  those  who  have  preceded  them."  Abandon,  then,  "  the 
barren  studies  "  of  the  olden  time ;  learn  "  the  new  philosophy,"  which 
dates  only  from  the  age  of  Bacon,  and  is  illustrated  by  the  marvels  of 
modern  discovery  and  invention.  A  lifetime  is  too  short  to  acquire 
an  adequate  comprehension  of  what  the  utilitarian  sciences  of  our  own 
day  have  accomplished  for  the  world's  welfare.  Let  the  dead  past 
bury  its  dead.  And  this  advice  is  given  not  only  for  the  distribution 
of  time  and  effort  by  men  of  mature  years,  but  with  especial  reference 
to  the  education  of  the  young. 

This  brief  summary,  given  mostly  in  his  own  words,  shows  that  Dr. 
Bigelow's  quarrel  is  not  only  with  the  languages,  but  with  "  the  intel- 
lectual pursuits,"  of  the  ancients,  —  with  all  the  sciences  and  arts  in 
which  they  peculiarly  excelled.  His  censure  strikes  not  merely  their 
forms  of  speech,  but  their  literature,  their  habits  of  thought,  their  arts, 

•  their  logic,  and  philosophy.  It  is  little  that  he  denies  the  educational 
value  of  these  things ;  the  present  generation,  he  thinks,  can  profitably 
discard  them  altogether.  The  world,  we  are  told,  has  outgrown  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  in  all  respects.  The  Essayist  traverses  the  two 
thousand  years  of  history  which  immediately  preceded  the  age  of 
Bacon,  and  finds  that  all  is  barren.  To  him,  physical  science  is  every- 
thing ;  the  moral  sciences  are  a  mere  wilderness  of  words  and  waste 

*  of  labor.  And  even  physical  science  deserves  cultivation  only  so  far 
as  it  leads  to  definite  and  tangible  results,  and  conduces  to  the  mate- 
rial welfare  of  mankind,  —  only  so  far  as  it  facilitates  the  invention 
of  such  things  as  locomotives,  spinning-jennies,  and  Parrott  guns. 
The  Essay  might  bear  as  its  motto  the  maxim  of  Sardanapalus : 
"  Eat,  drink,  and  obtain  the  maximum  of  physical  ease  and  enjoyment ; 
the  rest  is  not  worth  a  fillip."  Not  Dr.  Bigelow's  original  intention 
surely,  but  the  necessities  of  his  argument,  drove  him  to  these  sweep- 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


5 


ing  iconoclastic  doctrines.  He  finds  it  impossible  to  decry  the  study 
of  the  ancient  languages  except  upon  those  low  utilitarian  principles 
which  preclude  our  finding  merit  in  anything  that  does  not  promote 
physical  comfort,  or  gratify  ambition  by  enslaving  outward  nature  to 
our  material  uses.  I  am  glad  that  it  is  so.  The  extravagance  of  the 
conclusions  is  a  complete  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the  premises. 

The  Essayist  has  overlooked  one  point,  a  due  estimation  of  which  is 
essential  to  any  full  consideration  of  the  subject.  Harvard  College  has 
less  than  four  hundred  and  fifty  undergraduates ;  add  those  at  Williams, 
Amherst,  Tufts,  and  one  or  two  smaller  institutions,  and  we  have,  in 
this  State,  a  total  of  about  one  thousand  students  in  College.  It  might 
seem  that  there  are  about  one  thousand  others  in  schools  and  acade- 
mies, who  are  pursuing  preparatory  Classical  Studies ;  but,  as  less 
than  half  of  the  undergraduate  period  is  devoted  to  these  studies,  and 
not  more  than  two  years  are  spent  in  acquiring  Latin  and  Greek 
enough  for  admission  to  college,  —  the  remainder  of  the  time  being 
given  to  mathematics  and  physical  or  moral  science,  —  it  follows  that 
there  are  not,  at  any  one  time,  more  than  about  one  thousand  or  twelve 
hundred  young  men  in  Massachusetts  who  are  studying  what  are 
called  the  dead  languages.  Our  population  is  over  twelve  hundred 
thousand,  of  whom  about  one  sixth,  or  two  hundred  thousand,  are,  or 
ought  to  be,  receiving  a  school  education ;  in  other  words,  one  out  of 
every  two  hundred  pupils  is,  at  any  one  time,  studying  the  Classics. 
This  proportion  is  probably  larger  in  Massachusetts  than  in  any  other 
State  in  the  Union,  and  I  believe  it  is  quite  as  large  as  in  any  country 
in  Europe,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Germany,  where  the  direct 
patronage  of  government  fosters  these  studies  to  a  somewhat  unnatural 
extent. 

Then,  if  asked  whether  our  industrious  and  inventive  contemporaries 
would  do  well  to  intermit  their  mechanical  pursuits  in  order  to  study 
the  ancient  languages  and  sciences,  the  answer  is,  Certainly  not ;  no 
sane  advocate  of  Classical  Studies  expects  or  wishes  the  thousandth 
part  of  the  whole  community  to  do  any  such  thing.  But  what  then  ? 
Because  not  one  man  out  of  a  hundred  thousand  needs  to  become  a 
practical  astronomer,  we  do  not  therefore  break  our  telescopes  and 
pull  down  our  observatories.  The  function  of  the  select  few  is  not 
to  be  construed  into  a  universal  obligation.  The  real  question  is, 
whether  those  few,  —  about  the  two  hundredth  part  of  the  whole  edu- 
cable  number,  —  who  have  the  time,  means,  and  wish  to  obtain  a  lib' 
era/ education,  —  that  is,  to  give  themselves,  up  to  about  twenty-one 


6 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


years  of  age,  to  general  studies,  before  undertaking  the  special  studies 
of  some  particular  profession,  —  should  be  encouraged  to  devote  one 
fourth  or  one  third  part  of  this  training-time  to  the  ancient  languages 
and  sciences ;  and  this,  not  more  for  their  own  sake,  than  for  that  of 
the  whole  community  who  are  hereafter  to  profit  by  their  scholastic 
attainments.  The  Classics  have  no  place  in  our  Primary  or  Grammar 
schools  ;  we  would  not  even  make  the  study  of  them  imperative  in  our 
Scientific  Schools  or  Technological  Institutes,  though,  for  reasons  soon 
to  be  given,  the  pupils  in  the  two  last  would  unquestionably  be  better 
fitted  for  their  work  by  the  acquisition  of  a  little  Latin  and  Greek. 
And  even  in  our  Colleges,  as  already  explained,  less  than  half  of  the 
pupils'  time  is  devoted  to  these  languages. 

I  am  not  going  to  w^eary  you  with  an  attempt  even  to  recapitulate 
all  the  grounds  of  apology  (if  I  must  use  that  word)  for  Classical 
learning.  The  field  has  been  so  thoroughly  trodden  down  by  the 
multitudes  who  have  passed  over  it,  that  there  is  not  a  square  inch  of 
green  turf  left,  and  it  offers  but  a  dreary  prospect.  Scholars  can  well 
afford  to  rest  their  case  on  this  single  consideration, — that  the  words 
and  the  thoughts  of  the  old  Greeks  and  Romans  have  been  so  thor- 
oughly incorporated,  so  deeply  ingrained,  into  modern  language  and 
literature,  whether  French,  Italian,  Spanish,  or  English,  that  no 
thorough  knowledge  or  appreciation  of  these  derivatives  is  possible 
except  by  going  to  the  sources  whence  they  were  drawn ;  that  this 
infusion  has  taken  place,  even  in  a  greater  degree,  into  modern  science, 
which  is  so  built  upon  ancient  learning, — its  precise,  far-extended, 
and  ever-increasing  nomenclature  being  almost  exclusively  Greek,  — 
that,  without  a  tolerable  knowledge  of  that  language,  it  may  fairly  be 
said  that  the  student  of  science,  however  earnest  and  capable,  knows 
hardly  a  word  of  what  he  is  talking  about.  Without  such  knowledge, 
the  lawyer  must  seem,  even  to  himself,  in  the  names  of  the  writs  which 
he  .every  day  draws,  and  in  the  phraseology  of  the  legal  aphorisms 
which  he  is  compelled  constantly  to  cite,  to  be  prating  a  jargon  com- 
pared with  which  even  Choctaw  would  be  significant  and  harmonious. 
Without  it,  the  physician  cannot  read  intelligently  a  single  page  of  a 
medical  book.  Without  it,  the  divine,  except  by  dim  approximation 
and  with  much  blind  trust  in  very  fallible  human  guides,  cannot  inter- 
pret the  very  title-deeds  of  man's  salvation.  Language  itself,  in  its 
widest  sense,  not  of  this  or  that  particular  nation,  but  of  the  whole 
human  race,  —  that  marvellous  work,  as  I  believe,  not  of  man,  but  of 
God  himself,  —  with  all  its  intricacies  of  structure,  complex  harmonies, 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


7 


and  subtle  adaptations  to  the  nicest  shades  of  meaning,  cannot  be 
anatomized  in  structure  or  unfolded  in  thought,  except  by  the  aid  of 
that  special,  and  yet  typical,  form  of  it  which  was  spoken  in  Attica 
two  thousand  years  ago.  Universal  grammar  is  a  science  which  owes 
not  merely  its  terminology,  but  its  very  being  and  substance,  to  the 
light  which  the  special  formations  and  historical  development  of  Latin 
and  Greek,  with  their  derivatives,  have  shed  upon  the  structure  of  all 
other  tongues.  It  is  but  an  illustration  of  this- general  fact  to  say  of 
English  grammar,  in  all  its  parts,  —  orthography,  etymology,  syntax, 
and  prosody,  —  as  taught  in  our  lowest  public  schools,  that  it  is  only, 
as  these  very  words  import,  an  uncouth  representative  —  a  sort  of 
bastard  child  —  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  Accidence.  And  I  believe 
most  practical  teachers  will  bear  me  out  in  asserting,  that  it  is  never 
taught  with  any  thoroughness  or  to  much  profit,  except  as  a  conse- 
quent, and  not  as  an  antecedent,  of  the  Latin  grammar.  How  could 
it  be  otherwise,  in  view  of  the  very  complex  origin  of  our  language, 
its  vigorous  but  somewhat  wild  development,  and  the  heterogeneous 
elements  of  which  it  is  made  up  ?  Our  noble  mother-tongue  is  alike 
remarkable  for  its  copiousness,  its  flexibility,  its  strength,  and  its  law- 
lessness.   It  will  acknowledge  no  rule  but 

"  usus 

Quern  penes  arbitrium  est  et  jus  et  norma  loquendi ;  " 

it  will  conform  to  no  analogy;  but  its  abundant  life  and  luxuriant 
growth  push  forth  into  the  most  anomalous  forms  of  branch,  leaf,  and 
fruit.  Nearly  forty  per  cent,  of  its  vocabulary,  it  has  been  computed, 
is  Latin  or  Greek  ;  and  only  in  the  complex  but  regular  structure 
of  those  languages,  can  we  find  —  I  will  not  say  a  key  to  its  intricacies, 
but  —  a  criterion  and  instrument  by  which  we  can  trace  its  processes 
of  development  and  measure  its  departures  from  rule. 

EngHsh  literature,  too,  is  so  deeply  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the 
Classical  ages  that  a  large  portion  of  it  cannot  be  read  with  any  en- 
joyment or  intelligent  appreciation,  except  under  the  light  reflected 
from  those  stars  of  a  distant  firmament.  Take  Milton,  for  instance, 
in  either  of  his  two  epics  or  in  his  minor  poems  ;  and,  apart  from  the 
gorgeous  diction,  so  redolent  of  Greece  and  Rome,  you  find  the  very 
matter  and  substance  of  his  verses  so  deeply  saturated  with  the  Clas- 
sical aroma,  —  so  rich  with  allusions,  imitations,  and  illustrations  from 
the  old  perennial  sources,  from  Greek  and  Roman  mythology,  history, 
tragedy,  and  art,  —  that,  take  away  all  recollection  of  these,  and  the 


8 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


poet's  coloring  fades,  his  spirit  evaporates,  and  nothing  remains  but  a 
caput  mortuum.  Even  of  his  "  Samson  Agonistes,"  it  may  be  affirmed, 
that  only  the  framework  is  Hebrew ;  the  substance,  the  drapery,  the 
soul  within,  is  pure  Greek,  —  a  mere  infusion  of  Sophocles  and  Eurip- 
ides. Nearly  as  much  may  be  said  of  Cowley,  Dryden,  Gray,  John- 
son, Keats,  and  even  large  portions  of  Tennyson,  Mrs.  Barrett,  and 
other  popular  bards  of  our  own  day.  Bacon,  rightly  or  wrongly 
claimed  as  the  founder  of  modern  utilitarian  science,  wrote  half  of  his 
works  in  Latin,  and  decanted  so  much  of  the  Classics  into  his  English 
prose,  even  into  his  most  popular  work,  the  Essays,  as  to  be  well  nigh 
unintelligible  to  any  but  a  Classical  scholar,  except  in  a  richly  anno- 
tated edition.  Thomas  Hobbes,  the  true  master  and  exponent  of 
modern  utilitarianism  and  materialism,  also  wrote  Latin  nearly  half 
the  time,  and  spent  his  youth  on  a  translation  of  Thucydides,  and  his 
old  age  on  a  metrical  version  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  Follow 
down  the  line  of  English  prose  writers  of  any  note,  from  Hooker  and 
Bacon  to  Macaulay  and  Sir  William  Hamilton,  striking  out  of  each 
every  allusion  to  the  Classics,  —  every  citation  from  and  everything 
suggested  by  them,  —  and  what  will  remain  but  ragged  fragments, 
alike  destitute  of  coloring,  coherence,  and  beauty  ? 

Dr.  Bigelow's  Essay  appears  as  a  further  exposition  and  defence  of 
the  theory  maintained  in  his  Discourse  on  the  Limits  of  Education, 
pronounced  at  the  opening  of  the  Technological  Institute ;  and  must 
be  viewed  in  connection  also  with  an  able  Lecture  on  Classical  Studies, 
published,  a  short  time  before,  by  Prof.  Atkinson  of  that  establishment. 
But  the  peculiar  functions  and  studies  of  that  Institute,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  stand  in  no  need  of  this  indirect  advocacy,  and  will  not  be  promoted 
by  depreciating  the  quite  dissimilar  work  and  office  of  our  American 
Colleges.  The  great  want  of  special  training  in  physical  science  and 
art,  by  many  who  have  not  the  time,  means,  or  taste  for  a  full  course 
of  liberal  education,  was  recognized  long  since  by  the  friends  of  such 
education,  and  was  met,  over  twenty  years  ago,  by  the  establishment, 
first  at  Harvard,  and  afterwards  at  most  of  our  New  England  Colleges, 
of  a  "  Scientific  School,"  open  to  all  who  are  acquainted  with  no  lan- 
guage but  their  own,  and  who  desire  to  study  no  other.  Following 
the  example  thus  set,  and  organized  on  precisely  the  same  plan,  the 
educational  department  of  the  Technological  Institute  has  been  created, 
to  meet  the  wants  of  Boston,  for  whose  youth  it  is  evidently  a  great  con- 
venience to  be  enabled  to  pursue  their  studies  and  still  to  live  at  home. 
The  design  is  an  excellent  one,  and  every  friend  of  liberal,  as  well  as  of 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


9 


scientific,  studies  will  bid  God-speed  to  the  enterprise.  But  it  seems 
very  injudicious  on  the  part  of  its  special  advocates  to  attempt  to 
recommend  it  still  further,  by  maintaining  that  a  proper  College  educa- 
tion is  worthless,  or  unsuited  to  the  wants  of  the  age,  and  a  scientific 
one  all-sufficient  for  everybody.  At  any  rate,  is  it  quite  consistent 
for  them,  under  such  circumstances,  as  soon  as  they  have  created  a 
professorship  of  English  language  and  literature,  to  proceed  to  appoint 
to  it  a  gentleman  who  has  been  a  most  accomplished  teacher  of  Latin 
and  Greek  for  about  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  to  fill  nearly  every 
other  professorship  in  the  Institute  by  distinguished  graduates  of  Col- 
leges ?  Such  action  is  an  involuntary  confession,  on  their  part,  of  the 
truth  of  the  doctrine  here  maintained,  —  that,  whatever  may  be  said 
against  the  utility  of  Classical  Studies,  a  good  proficiency  in  them  is, 
at  any  rate,  indispensable  for  obtaining  or  imparting  any  competent 
knowledge  of  the  English  language  or  its  literature. 

I  should  not  have  alluded  to  this  bit  of  local  history,  if  it  did  not 
farther  illustrate  the  importance  to  the  whole  community  of  that  course 
of  liberal  studies,  in  which  the  Classics  occupy  the  chief  place, —  of  that 
comprehensive,  systematiCj  and  generous  training,  enjoyed  though  it 
be  only  by  comparatively  few,  —  which  no  one  thinks  of  seeking 
elsewhere  than  in  the  walls  of  a  College.  It  teaches  the  teachers.  It 
breaks  down  the  partitions,  and  even  the  jealousies,  which  would  other- 
wise sunder  and  impede  labor  in  special  vocations.  By  laying  the 
foundations  broad,  even  if  not  deep,  —  by  widening  the  range  of  our 
sympathies,  as  well  as  of  our  power  of  comprehension,  —  by  counter- 
acting the  necessarily  narrow  and  narrowing  influences  of  the  division 
of  labor  when  applied  to  intellectual  pursuits,  it  creates,  what  here 
in  America,  at  any  rate,  we  are  in  sore  need  of,  a  literary  and  scien- 
tific public,  able  and  patient  always  at  least  to  hear,  not  infrequently 
qualified  to  understand,  sometimes  competent  to  judge. 

And  here  I  need  not  wander  far  in  search  of  an  illustration,  but 
may  find  one  in  the  very  constitution  of  this  Academy,  and  an  echo  in 
the  feelings,  as  well  as  the  judgment,  of  every  gentleman  who  hears 
me.  Here,  our  functions  are  as  unexclusive  as  our  corporate  appella- 
tion, which  might  otherwise  perhaps  appear  somewhat  sweeping  and 
pretentious.  Here,  more  and  more  frequently,  perhaps,  than  in  any 
other  assembly  called  together  at  stated  times  on  this  continent,  we 
are  reminded  of  the  essential  brotherhood  of  all  the  arts  and  sciences ; 
and  this  truth  cannot  be  felt,  as  well  as  understood,  anywhere  so  well 
as  in  a  society  composed  in  the  main  of  scholars,  —  of  liberally  edu- 
2 


10 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


cated  men.  I  have  not  sought  out  the  statistics  of  this  subject,  as  it 
would  be  an  impertinence  to  do  so  ;  but  I  fear  not  to  avow  the  belief, 
that  more  than  three-fourths  of  our  number  are  graduates  of  Colleges. 
Neither  can  there  be  any  fear  lest  I  should  seem  to  be  here  making 
an  invidious  distinction  ;  since  it  appears  from  the  proceedings  of  this 
evening,^  as  well  as  from  the  results  of  several  other  meetings  which 
are  still  recent,  that  what  few  honors  we  have  to  bestow,  our  Rum- 
ford  medals  and  our  elections  to  office,  often  fall  to  the  share  of  the 
small  minority  who  are  more  or  less  self-taught.  All  the  merit  which 
my  argument  requires  me  to  claim  for  those  of  us  who  have  been 
trained  at  College  is,  that  our  Classical  Studies,  however  little  else  they 
may  have  done  for  us,  have,  at  least,  so  far  liberalized  our  minds  and 
increased  our  power  of  intelligent  apprehension,  that  we  can  gladly 
hear,  and  to  some  small  extent  understand  and  appreciate,  whatever  is 
done  to  extend  the  bounds  even  of  the  most  recondite  and  difficult 
science.  We  cannot  make  telescopes,  probably  could  not  adjust  or 
use  them  when  made  ;  but  we  can  honor  those  who  have  this  power, 
and  are  thereby  enabled  to  pierce  farther  into  the  remote  secrets  of 
God's  universe  than  mortal  eye  ever  saw  before.  Our  Latin  and 
Greek,  however  imperfectly  remembered,  serve  at  least  to  remind 
us,  during  the  somewhat  abstruse  and  otherwise  forbidding  expositions 
and  discussions  to  which  we  often  listen  here,  that  all  the  sciences, 
whether  they  date  from  Aristotle  and  Hipparchus,  or  from  this  nine- 
teenth century,  whether  the  latest  improvements  in  them  come  from 
Italy,  Germany,  France,  England,  or  the  United  States,  still  speak  a 
common  language,  and  that  one  which  we  learned  when  we  were  boys, 
and  which  calls  up  a  rush  of  pleasant  memories.  We  can  hear,  not 
only  without  flinching,  but  even  with  gleams  of  significance  and  de- 
light, Prof.  Peirce  discourse  about  quaternions,  isoperimetrics,  loxo- 
dromics,  and  brachystochrones  ;  or  you.  Sir,  of  exogens,  endogens, 
phyllotaxis,  epiphytes,  dichotomous,  pentdgynous,  and pentandrous  plants ; 
or  Mr.  Agassiz,  of  digitigrades,  acalephs,  gasteropods,  cephalopods, 
pachyderms,  echinoderms,  —  and  other  "gorgons  and  chimceras  dire  ;  " 
and  even  Dr.  Bigelow,  talking  Greek  in  spite  of  himself,  by  lecturing 
about  diagnosis,  prognosis,  prophylactics,  an  (Esthetics,  endemics,  epi- 
demics, and  sporadics  ;  and  yet  farther,  though  physical  science,  in 

1  At  this  meeting  of  the  Academy,  tlie  Kumford  Medal  was  delivered  to  Mr. 
Alvan  Clark,  of  Cambridgcport,  for  improvements  made  byliim  in  the  constructioa 
of  lenses  for  refracting  telescopes. 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


11 


the  intoxication  of  great  success,  has  been  somewhat  encroaching  and 
domineering  of  late,  even  logic  and  metaphysics  are  permitted  at  least 
to  whisper  of  suhsumptions,  epicheiremas,  sorites,  and  the  qaantijica- 
tion  of  predicates,  or  of  ontology,  entelechy,  noumena,  apperception, 
teleology,  and  synthetic  cognitions  a  priori.  These,  and  ten  thousand 
others  like  them,  are  not  merely  intelligible  as  simple  appellatives  or 
single  words,  with  a  sort  of  Classical  fragrance  about  them,  but  in  their 
composite  character  they  are  concise  definitions  or  descriptions,  which 
stir  the  imagination  and  the  memory,  as  well  as  the  intellect  proper. 
As  quaint  old  Fuller  says,  to  us  "the  joints  of  these  compound  words 
are  so  naturally  oiled,  that  they  run  nimbly  on  the  tongue,  which 
makes  them,  though  long,  never  tedious,  because  significant."  But  to 
those  who  have  no  tincture  of  Classical  learning,  whether  addressed 
to  the  ear  or  the  eye,  they  are  only  sesquipedalian  agglutinations  of 
syllables,  as  little  significant  as  abracadabra  or  Ghrononhotontliologos. 

Any  one  who  should  fancy  that  they  are  too  numerous,  cumbersome, 
and  pedantic,  or  that  they  might  be  replaced  by  pithy  English  words, 
may  be  assured  that  his  education  in  any  one  science  has  not  yet 
reached  the  pons  asinorum.  These  formidable  polysyllables  are  "  a 
kind  of  short-hand  of  the  science,  or  algebraic  notation  ;  "  and  without 
them,  the  investigator  would  be  as  helpless  as  an  algebraist  or  chemist 
without  his  symbols,  or  an  arithmetician  without  the  Arabic  numerals. 
In  the  last  analysis,  all  science,  whether  physical  or  moral,  is  nothing 
but  skilful  classification  ;  and  without  a  curiously  compounded  nomen- 
clature and  terminology,  which  can  be  built  up  only  from  Latin  or 
Greek  roots,  classification  would  be  but  another  name  for  confusion. 
And  for  this  use,  it  does  not  matter  much  that  most  of  us  retain  but  a 
very  dim  memory  of  our  studies  at  school  and  College  ;  as  almost  num- 
berless compounds  can  be  formed  by  ringing  the  changes  on  a  very 
few  elements,  a  mere  smattering  of  the  Classical  vocabulary,  such  as 
is  kept  up  almost  involuntarily  by  reading  common  English  prose  and 
poetry,  suffices  to  interpret  these  scientific  shibboleths.  A  very  few 
prepositions  often  repeated,  a  small  stock  of  adjectives,  also  frequently 
recurrent,  and  a  moderate  supply  of  the  most  familiar  nouns  are  forged 
into  the  keys  which  unlock  every  coffer  in  the  treasure-house. 

Intelligent  companionship,  appreciation,  and  sympathy,  such  as  the 
scientific  associations  constituted  like  this  Academy  are  enabled  to 
afford,  through  the  fact  that  all  the  sciences  speak  what  may  be  called 
a  common  language,  together  with  the  secret  consciousness  of  the  far 
wider  companionship  and  sympathy  which  is  kept  alive  by  finding  this 


12 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


scientific  vocabulary  also  common  to  nearly  all  civilized  nations, 
though  in  ordinary  discourse  they  use  a  babel  of  diverse  tongues,  fur- 
nish an  almost  indispensable  encouragement  for  persistent  scientific 
effort  and  research.  The  greatest  need  of  the  savant  at  the  present 
day,  especially  in  the  more  recondite  branches  of  inquiry,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  is  the  need  of  an  audience.  He  is  in  no  danger  of  starving ; 
the  age  and  the  country  have  at  least  raised  him  above  that  peril. 
Books  are  always  at  hand,  and  even  laboratories  and  museums 
are  frequent.  But  isolate  him  altogether  in  his  work,  cut  off  his 
readers  and  hearers,  as  Dr.  Bigelow  proposes  to  do,  first  by  breaking 
up  the  comprehensive  scheme  of  studies  at  College,  where  alone  one 
comes  to  know  a  little  of  almost  everything,  and  then  by  cutting  up 
from  the  roots  the  common  language  of  the  learned,  and  you  dis- 
hearten him  altogether ;  you  reduce  him  first  to  silence,  and  finally  to 
inaction. 

How  important  this  community  of  scientific  terms  among  all  culti- 
vated languages  is  to  the  savant^  may  be  seen  from  the  example  of 
the  only  nation  in  Europe  which  seems  to  be  under  no  necessity  of 
building  up  its  technicalities  out  of  the  dead  languages.  Alone  among 
all  modern  tongues,  the  German  fully  rivals  the  Greek  in  its  power  of 
forming  compounds  without  limit  from  native  roots ;  and  it  has  used 
this  power  to  a  considerable  extent,  by  employing  such  words  as 
sauerstoff,  wasserstoff^  Izohhtoff^  and  stickstqff,  instead  of  oxygen,  hy- 
drogen, carbon,  and  nitrogen.  But,  convenient  at  home  as  such  a 
vocabulary  certainly  is,  and  flattering  to  national  pride,  it  is  found  to 
place  too  great  a  bar  upon  their  freedom  of  scientific  intercourse  with 
other  nations ;  and  hence  their  list  of  such  terms  has  never  been  com- 
pleted, and  it  is  but  in  partial  use  even  as  far  as  it  goes.  So  true  is 
it  what  Homer  says,  as  cited  and  applied  to  illustrate  this  very  point 
both  by  Plato  and  Aristotle,  that 

"  By  mutual  confidence  and  mutual  aid, 
Great  deeds  are  done,  and  great  discoveries  made." 

Because  the  sciences  in  these  modern  times  have  been  multiplied 
and  enlarged,  and  the  arts  increased.  Dr.  Bigelow  argues  that  any 
liberal  and  comprehensive  culture  of  mind,  such  as  is  attempted  in  our 
Colleges  through  a  course  of  general  studies,  has  become  impracticable. 
To  adopt  his  own  metaphor,  as  "  the  educational  loaf  on  which  the 
community  is  fed "  has  been  so  much  enlarged,  he  will  not  allow  to 
Classical  literature  even  a  fragment  of  the  crust.    And  farther,  be- 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


13 


cause  the  division  of  labor  has  been  profitable  in  mechanical  pursuits, 
he  affirms  that  pupils  cannot  "  undertake  to  make  themselves  compe- 
tent representatives  of  all  the  various  sciences,  the  literary  studies,  the 
languages  dead  and  living,  which  are  now  professedly  taught  in  our 
Colleges  and  seminaries."  Of  course,  they  cannot ;  but  in  view  of  that 
solidarity  of  the  sciences,  which  every  day's  progress  is  making  more 
evident,  the  real  question  is,  whether  a  student  can  become  a  "  com- 
petent representative  "  of  any  one  science,  without  that  very  general 
culture  of  mind  which  is  nowhere  attempted  but  in  College ;  or  whether 
any  one  scientific  or  literary  pursuit  would  flourish  and  expand,  if 
each  were  isolated,  none  but  its  special  votaries  having  any  acquaint- 
ance with  it  whatever,  and  these  being  doomed,  like  each  class  of 
artisans  in  a  big  workshop,  to  spend  their  lives  intellectually  in  mak- 
ing the  eighteenth  part  of  a  pin.  Dr.  Bigelow's  scheme  of  a  scientific 
education  begins  by  depriving  the  student  of  the  common  language 
of  all  the  sciences,  proceeds  by  leaving  him  without  any  scientific  pub- 
lic, either  at  home  or  abroad,  competent  to  hear  and  judge  his  work, 
and  ends  by  requiring  him  to  mount  to  the  mast-head  after  he  has 
taken  away  all  the  shrouds.  Such  a  scheme  might  produce  a  chemist, 
though  I  doubt  it;  but  it  certainly  would  not  make  even  the  eigh- 
teenth part  of  a  man.  And  yet  the  Essayist  complains  of  sciolism. 
"Why,  the  worst  sort  of  sciolism,  and  one  with  which  we  are  peculiarly 
afflicted  in  this  country,  is  that  men  assume  to  be  scientific  chemists 
on  an  amount  of  general  knowledge  which  would  hardly  qualify  them 
to  be  decent  apothecaries  ;  or  prate  about  the  most  difficult  problems  in 
geology,  before  they  know  enough  of  botany  or  zoology  to  pronounce 
on  the  character  of  a  single  fossil.  Yet  the  starved  and  miserly  train- 
ing which  breeds  such  pretenders,  we  are  now  invited  to  substitute  for 
the  liberal  and  comprehensive  culture,  which  aims  to  develop  all  the 
faculties,  and  thereby  to  "  fit  a  man  to  perform  justly,  skilfully,  and  mag- 
nanimously all  the  offices,  both  private  and  public,  of  peace  and  war." 

I  appeal  to  your  own  favorite  science.  Sir.  What  sort  of  a  botanist 
is  he,  who  knows  nothing  of  physiology  ;  or  how  much  physiology  can 
he  acquire,  if  he  is  not  something  of  a  chemist ;  or  what  is  chemistry, 
if  not  based  on  physics ;  or  can  one  become  a  physicist,  without  a  com- 
petent acquaintance  with  mathematics ;  and  how  much  time  and  labor 
must  be  spent  on  the  very  elements  —  the  far-extended  vocabulary 
and  notation  —  of  each  of  these  sciences,  by  one  whose  total  ignorance 
of  Latin  and  Greek  obliges  him  to  master  them,  as  it  were,  mechan- 
ically and  by  main  strength,  just  as  he  would  commit  to  memory  whole 


14 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


pages  of  a  dictionary  ?  I  suspect  the  first  lesson  you  would  assign  him 
in  botany  would  be  the  first  six  pages  of  the  Latin  Grammar,  —  to  be 
taken  on  an  empty  stomach. 

Besides,  in  the  argument  we  are  now  considering,  it  is  forgotten 
that  a  process  of  generalization,  condensation,  and  elimination  takes 
place,  at  least  pari  passu,  generally  in  advance,  of  every  step  of  prog- 
ress in  science.  Often,  indeed,  the  progress  consists  in  this  process  of 
"  boiling  down  "  the  previous  results ;  one  general  law  takes  the  place 
of  a  multitude  of  formerly  isolated  facts.  Hence  it  is,  as  has  been 
often  remarked,  that  an  undergraduate  in  College  may  now  easily  ac- 
quire mathematical  truths  and  formulas  which  Newton  was  ignorant 
of ;  he  must  know  more  astronomy  than  Copernicus  did,  and  more 
physics  than  Galileo ;  and  he  makes  these  attainments,  too,  with  but 
half  the  time  and  effort  which  it  cost  the  contemporaries  of  those  illus- 
trious men  to  rise  even  to  the  level  of  their  own  day.  And  if  we  are  to  • 
adopt  the  mode  of  estimating  relative  merit  which  the.  Essayist  coolly 
applies  to  the  ancients  and  moderns,  acting  on  the  maxim  that  a  liv- 
ing dog  is  better  than  a  dead  lion,  it  follows  that  our  school-boys  are 
to  be  preferred  over  the  great  discoverers  of  truth,  —  the  teachers  of 
the  world. 

Dr.  Bigelow  affirms  that  "  the  world  mainly  owes  its  present  ad- 
vanced and  civilized  state  to  the  influence  of  certain  physical  discov- 
eries and  inventions,  of  comparatively  recent  date,  among  which  are 
conspicuous  the  printing-press,  the  mariner's  compass,  the  steam-en- 
gine," etc.  And,  in  speaking  of  those  great  events  which  are  usually 
considered  as  marking  the  origin  of  modern  civilization,  namely,  the 
Reformation,  the  exodus  of  Greeks  from  Constantinople,  and  the 
revival  of  letters,  —  two  of  these,  be  it  observed,  being  only  names 
for  the  revival  of  Classical  Studies,  especially  of  Greek,  —  he  still 
asserts,  that  "  at  the  root  of  all  these  agencies,  and  deep  and  far  beyond 
and  above  them,  was  the  vivifying  nurture  of  utilitarian  science."  If 
so,  it  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  the  effect  preceded  the  cause  by 
about  a  century,  since  the  dawn  of  modern  utiHtarian  science  cannot 
be  placed  earlier  than  the  age  of  Bacon  and  Galileo,  at  the  very  close 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  when  the  three  great  agencies  in  question 
had  been  at  work  about  a  hundred  years. 

But  let  this  pass,  as  I  would  call  attention  only  to  the  main  doc- 
trine here  and  elsewhere  propounded  by  the  Essayist,  which,  like 
Mr.  Buckle's  theory,  makes  civilization  itself  mainly  consist  in  such 
things  as  gas-lights,  steam-engines,  sewing-machines,  photographs, 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


15 


and  vulcanized  India-rubber.  I  reject  the  definition  altogether.  Not 
what  men  have^  but  what  they  think  and  believe,  or,  rather,  what  they 
are,  are  at  once  the  tokens  of  their  culture  and  the  sources  of  their 
strength.  Turn  a  civilized  community  naked  into  a  wilderness  or  a 
desert,  and  they  will  be  a  civilized  community  still ;  and  their  hands, 
guided  by  their  minds,  will  subdue  that  wilderness  and  turn  that 
desert  into  a  garden.  The  Athenians,  in  the  age  of  Pericles,  had  not 
one  of  these  soi-disant  material  and  tangible  means  and  agents  of 
civilization  ;  but  these  Athenians,  saving  only  their  lack  of  one  ele- 
ment, which  originated  in  Palestine  some  four  hundred  years  after- 
wards, were  the  most  highly  civilized  people  the  world  has  ever 
known ;  and  their  works,  their  arts,  their  literature,  their  philosophy, 
have  fed  and  colored,  from  within  outwards,  the  civilization  of  all 
succeeding  times.    The  men  of  that  age  and  place  are  even  now 

"  the  dead,  but  sceptred,  sovrans, 
Who  still  rule  our  spirits  from  their  urns." 

As  Sir  William  Hamilton  tells  us,  "  every  learner  in  science  is  now 
familiar  with  more  truths  than  Aristotle  or  Plato  ever  dreamt  of 
knowing ;  yet,  compared  with  the  Stagirite  or  the  Athenian,  how  few 
even  of  our  masters  of  modern  science  rank  any  higher  than  intel- 
lectual barbarians !  " 

After  all,  have  these  recent  physical  discoveries  and  inventions 
contributed  so  largely  even  to  our  material  well-being,  that  we  can 
fairly  consider  them  as  the  glories  of  modern  civilization  ?  Have 
most  of  them  had  any  other  effect  than  to  feed  man's  vanity  and 
nourish  sterile  wonder  ?  Take,  for  example,  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
and  striking  of  the  whole  number,  and  one  to  which  abstruse  science 
most  largely  contributed,  —  the  discovery  of  Neptune.  What  matters 
it  to  you  or  me  personally,  or  to  any  human  being,  or  even  to  the 
other  members  of  the  solar  system  itself,  that,  on  its  outmost  verge, 
some  two  thousand  eight  hundred  millions  of  miles  from  us,  and  so 
hardly  perceptible  to  the  unaided  vision  as  a  faint  dot  in  the  evening 
skies,  there  is  a  planet  called  Neptune,  of  which  we  know  nothing 
whatever,  except  that  it  is  there,  and  that  it  circles  steadily  at  a 
measurable  rate  round  the  sun  ?  I  have  heard  a  remark  quoted  from 
a  queer  little  girl,  who  said  she  was  afraid  to  ask  her  Sunday-school 
teacher  who  Nimrod  was,  for  fear  he  should  tell  her,  and  it  would  be 
so  useless  to  know.    So  I  am  afraid  to  ask  Prof.  Winlock,  if  he  has 


16 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


recently  ascertained,  through  his  big  telescope,  whether  Neptune  is 
still  extant  in  his  proper  place,  or  whether  he  has  seceded,  —  gone  off, 
in  a  hyperbolic  or  parabolic  curve,  never  to  come  back  again.  I  am 
afraid  to  ask,  lest  he  should  tell  me,  and  it  would  be  so  useless  to 
know.  Why,  if  Neptune  himself  should  threaten  such  secession,  I 
doubt  not  that  the  other  planets,  in  solemn  congress  assembled,  would 
say  to  him,  "  Erring  brother,  depart  in  peace  ;  it  is  a  matter  of  pro- 
found indifference  to  us  whether  you  go  or  stay." 

And  then  the  telegraph.  For  a  year  or  two,  we  have  all  been 
shouting,  at  the  top  of  our  voices,  "  Great  is  the  Atlantic  telegraph, 
and  Cyrus  W.  Field  is  its  prophet !  "  But  here,  again,  we  forget  to 
ask  what  the  thing  is  worth,  in  the  greatness  of  our  astonishment  that 
it  should  be  done  at  all.    Like  the  fly  in  amber, 

"  The  thing  itself  is  neither  rich  nor  rare ; 
But  wonder  how  the  devil  it  got  there." 

What  has  the  Atlantic  telegraph  done  for  us  ?  It  has  given  us  news 
from  Europe  less  than  a  day  old,  instead  of  the  same  news  ten  or 
twelve  days  old.  But  the  intelligence  does  not  lose  its  distinctive 
character  as  news,  through  the  greater  or  less  time  occupied  in  its 
transmisL'ion.  I  never  heard  that  news  were  like  eggs,  liable,  if  kept 
over  ten  days,  to  become  addled  Let  me  not  undervalue  the  good 
sometimes  done  by  the  telegraph.  It  has  played  an  important,  even 
an  indispensable,  part  in  the  apprehension  of  John  H.  Surratt.  Once 
in  a  great  while,  it  is  a  tolerable  catchpole,  an  efficient  subsidiary 
agent  to  the  State's  prison  and  the  gallows.  By  its  means,  we  now 
have  Surratt  safe  in  irons,  and  can  bring  him  to  fair  trial ;  though,  at 
this  late  day,  I  suppose,  very  few  persons  cars  whether  the  miserable 
wretch  is  hanged  or  not. 

Because  the  ancients  had  none  of  these  things,  —  no  telegraphs, 
newspapers,  chloroform,  or  lucifer-matchcs,  —  it  is  charged  against 
them  that  their  civilization  was  narrow  and  barren,  and,  "  in  their  do- 
mestic habits,  they  were  primitive,  destitute,  and  uncleanly."  This 
whole  accusation  may  be  summed  up  in  the  old  sarcasm  against  the 
Emperor  Augustus,  that,  "  with  all  his  splendor,  he  had  no  glass  in 
his  windows  and  not  a  shirt  to  his  back." 

Here  is  the  utilitai  isjn  idea  of  civilization !  It  does  not  consist  in 
the  mignt  of  intellect,  nor  in  the  beauty  of  poetry,  nor  in  the  power 
of  oratory,  ncr  in  the  skill  of  statesmanship,  nor  in  the  graces  cf 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


17 


sculpture  and  architecture,  nor  in  the  wisdom  of  philosophy,  ror  in 
the  depths  of  abstract  science.  No.  Civilization  —  true,  modern 
civilization  —  consists  in  none  of  these  things ;  for,  in  each  and  all 
of  them,  unluckily,  the  men  of  the  Periclean  and  the  Augustan  age 
were  undo  ibtedly  our  equals,  if  n.  t  our  superiors.  But  civilization  — 
the  genuine  modern  article  —  consists  in  glass  windows  and  linen 
shirts.  As  to  the  two  assertions  contained  in  this  sarcasm  against  the 
emperor,  I  may  as  well  mention,  in  a  parenthesis,  that  they  are  not 
more  than  half-true.  Long  before  the  time  of  Augustus,  the  Romans 
had  glass  enough  to  stock  a  modern  fashionable  apothecary's  shop ; 
though  they  seem  to  have  used  it  chiefly  for  bottling,  not  their  medi- 
cines or  their  wines,  but  their  tears.  If  they  did  not  put  it  in  their 
windows,  it  was  probably  for  the  same  reason  that  half  of  the  Italians 
at  the  present  day  do  not  put  it  there,  —  because  the  climate  does  not 
require  it.  I  suspect  glass  windows  are  an  indispensable  condition  of 
civilization  only  in  high  latitudes.  As  to  the  other  alleged  fact,  if 
having  a  shirt  means,  as  I  suppose  it  does,  wearing  linen  next  the 
skin,  it  is  singular  enough  that,  within  a  few  years,  nearly  all  of  us, 
for  hygienic  reasons,  have  discarded  linen,  and  gone  back  to  the  old 
Augustan  dress,  —  fine  wool  or  silk  next  the  skin.  In  the  sense  of 
this  sarcasm,  if  it  has  any  sense,  I  doubt  whether  a  single  gentleman 
here  present  has  a  shirt  to  his  back.  To  the  Union  army,  consisting 
of  over  a  million  of  men  at  the  close  of  the  late  war,  I  believe  Fal- 
stafF's  account  of  his  own  troop  was  applicable,  —  that  there  was  but 
a  shirt  and  a  half  in  the  whole  company. 

Even  if  it  be  granted  that  the  glory  of  modern  times  is  its  mechan- 
ical inventions,  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the  study  of  physical 
science  and  the  establishment  of  Technological  Institutes  will  lead  to 
their  multiplication  or  improvement.  The  fact  is  notorious,  that  most 
of  these  are  the  results  of  accident,  or  have  been  made  by  unlearned 
men,  chiefly  by  ingenious  artisans.  Even  the  disposition  which  seeks 
for  them,  and  the  course  of  experiments  instituted  for  their  attain- 
ment, are  unfavorable  to  habits  of  scientific  research ;  for  gold,  not 
truth,  is  the  object  in  view ;  and  though  some  general  fact  or  law  of 
nature  may  incidentally  be  developed,  the  mind  was  not  on  the  watch 
for  it,  and  it  will  probably  be  overlooked  or  forgotten.  If  you  would 
train  up  inventors,  educate  your  sons  at  the  blacksmith's  forge  or  the 
carpenter's  bench,  in  watch-factories,  cotton-mills,  or  machine-shops. 
These  were  the  schools  in  which  Arkwright,  Watt,  Stephenson,  Paul 
Moody,  Howe,  Hobbs,  McCormick,  and  Goodyear  studied.  Sir 
3 


18 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


Humphrey  Davy  received  great  laudation  for  the  Safety  Lamp  ;  but  it 
is  now  known  that  he  was  anticipated  in  it,  several  years,  by  a  sooty 
son  of  the  mine,  who,  at  the  time,  was  hardly  able  to  write  his  name. 
History  has  not  even  recorded  the  authorship  or  the  date  of  some  most 
useful  contrivances  and  processes,  and  has  left  others  in  dispute ;  such 
as  glass,  the  mariner's  compass,  gunpowder,  and  the  printing-press  ; 
probably  because  their  inventors  were  ignorant  and  obscure  men,  who 
did  not  even  know  the  worth  of  what  they  had  accomplished.  The 
very  process  of  invention  is  often  blindly  tentative,  like  hunting  for  a 
needle  in  a  haymow ;  after  you  have  sought  it  in  vain  for  a  week, 
there  comes  along  a  clown  who  thrusts  his  hand  into  the  mow,  and 
pricks  his  finger  with  it  at  the  first  trial. 

Science,  it  is  true,  has  an  office  to  perform,  but  generally  it  is  one 
which  is  subsequent  to  tlie  invention,  and  which  consists  in  explaining 
the  rationale  of  the  process,  by  pointing  out  the  laws  of  nature 
through  which  the  result  is  obtained.  But  even  in  this  subsidiary 
function,  it  is  often  baffled  and  lags  far  behind  inventive  art.  Why 
should  caoutchouc  and  sulphur,  moderately  heated  and  rubbed  to- 
gether, produce  that  marvellous  and  most  useful  compound,  vulcanized 
India  rubber  ?  The  chemist  does  not  know ;  and  he  is  equally  igno- 
rant in  respect  to  many  of  the  processes  in  metallurgy  and  pharmacy. 
Why  is  cinchona  a  potent  febrifuge  ?  Ask  the  Peruvian  Indians, 
who  first  taught  our  doctors  how  to  use  it. 

These  facts,  if  rightly  weighed,  do  not  discredit  physical  science, 
and  certainly  are  not  here  cited  for  that  purpose.  But  they  do  mani- 
fest the  pitiable  folly  —  I  had  almost  said  the  impiety  —  of  measur- 
ing the  value  either  of  physics  or  metaphysics,  chemistry  or  phi- 
lology, by  a  low  utilitarian  standard  ;  of  estimating  our  proper  mental 
food  by  its  casual  and  indirect  results,  in  fattening  our  bodies,  or 
pampering  our  lower  appetites  and  desires.  In  this  Academy,  at 
least,  I  dare  assert  that  the  ultimate  object  of  scientific  research  is 
not  any  external  good,  but  knowledge  for  the  sake  of  knowing ;  and 
let  it  be  remembered,  in  behalf  of  the  Classics,  that  this  great  truth 
has  at  least  the  verdict  of  all  antiquity  in  its  favor,  though  it  is  too 
often  forgotten  or  slighted  in  this  nineteenth  century.  It  is  only 
a  corollary  from  this  maxim,  but  one  specially  applicable  to  the  sub- 
ject of  education,  to  say,  that  the  mere  effort  to  know  is  of  more 
worth  to  the  individual  who  makes  it  than  the  knowledge  acquired. 
The  chief  object  of  education,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  not  to  multiply  in- 
ventions, but  to  develop  the  intellect  and  form  the  character.      "  The 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


19 


intellect,"  says  Aristotle,  as  cited  by  Hamilton,  "  is  perfected  not 
knowledge,  but  by  activity."  But  as  Aristotle  was  an  old  Greek, 
whose  authority  will  be  disputed,  I  will  rather  cite  one  who  is  a  mod- 
ern Aristotle,  at  least  in  the  estimation  of  his  admirers,  —  the  great 
hierophant  of  Positive  science,  —  Auguste  Comte  ;  who  tells  us,  that 
"  les  hommes  ont  encore  plus  hesoin  de  methode  que  de  doctrine,  d'edu- 
cation  que  instruction "  [men  stand  much  more  in  need  of  the 
method,  than  of  the  matter,  of  learning, —  of  education,  or  the  means 
of  drawing  something  out  of  the  mind,  than  of  instruction,  or  the 
means  of  putting  something  into  it].  Or  take  the  same  meaning 
in  Greek,  in  which  form  I  well  know  it  will  best  please  the  Essayist ; 
ov  q)iXoooq)ia,  alia  q)ilo6oq)Eiv. 

Every  generation  of  civilized  men  inherits  the  intellectual  wealth, 
the  mechanical  contrivances,  and  the  useful  arts  of  all  the  ages  and 
the  nations  which  have  preceded  it ;  but  the  natural  wonder  and  self- 
complacency  with  which  men  view  their  own  achievements,  often  pre- 
vent them  from  estimating  fairly  the  extent  of  their  patrimony. 
When  the  Essayist  shouts  and  claps  his  hands  at  the  feats  of  modern 
science,  he  may  be  reminded  of  the  witty  reply  made  by  the  elder 
Astor,  of  New  York,  who,  when  mildly  reproved  for  not  contributing 
so  largely  to  some  public  object  as  his  own  son  had  done,  answered, 
"  That  is  not  a  fair  example ;  he  has  a  rich  father."  Scholars  will 
not  admit  that  the  attainments  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  in  practical 
science  and  art  were  inconsiderable,  or  that  their  every -day  life  was 
meagre,  uncleanly,  or  comfortless.  We  still  teach  in  our  schools  and 
Colleges,  essentially  in  its  original  form,  the  geometry  of  Euclid  and 
Archimedes,  and  the  'fundamental  principles  of  mechanics,  hydrostat- 
ics, and  optics,  as  originally  expounded  by  them.  The  discovery  of 
the  principle  of  specific  gravity  by  the  latter,  and  its  application 
by  him  in  determining  the  amount  of  alloy  in  base  metals,  was  per- 
haps the  most  important  single  step  that  was  ever  taken  in  physical 
science  ;  while  his  writings,  and  his  noted  exclamation,  that  he  would 
move  the  universe  if  he  could  find  a  fulcrum,  show  how  clearly  he 
understood  the  mechanical  powers.  His  defence  of  Syracuse  for 
three  years,  against  the  legions  of  Marcellus,  was  as  marvellous  a 
display  of  the  resources  of  physical  science  and  mechanical  ingenuity 
in  war,  as  the  modern  sieges  of  Sebastopol  and  Charleston  ;  and  his 
affecting  exclamation  when  the  Eoman  sword  had  already  reached  his 
neck, "  Do  not  efface  my  diagrams,"  places  his  name  at  the  head  of 
the  list  of  the  illustrious  martyrs  of  science.    Eratosthenes  measured 


20 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


the  obliquity  of  the  ecliptic,  and  a  degree  on  one  of  the  earth's  merid- 
ians, with  an  astonishing  approach  to  accuracy,  thereby  virtually  de- 
termining the  circumference  of  the  globe,  though  he  had  hardly  any 
better  instrument  than  a  sun-dial.  Hipparchus  detected  the  precession 
of  the  equinoxes,  worked  out  the  doctrine  of  the  sphere,  and  the  first 
ideas  of  plane  and  spherical  trigonometry,  noticed  the  parallax  of  the 
sun  and  moon,  calculated  lunar  and  solar  tables,  and  predicted  eclipses 
with  great  accuracy,  and  by  a  method  which  is  still  in  use  in  the 
higher  mathematics,  and  of  which  Whewell  says,  that  it  is  "  not  only 
good,  but,  in  many  cases,  no,  better  has  yet  been  discovered."  Strabo 
and  Ptolemy  are  still  high  authorities  in  geography,  the  latter  having 
determined  the  mathematical  principles  of  projection,  and  constructed 
maps,  charts,  and  almanacs  with  great  correctness.  Hippocrates  and 
Galen  are  still  quoted  as  in  high  repute  among  medical  writers,  and 
whole  cases  of  surgical  instruments  have  been  found  at  Pompeii. 
The  Julian  correction  of  the  calendar  was  not  perfect,  but  England 
had  no  better  till  tlie  reign  of  George  II. 

In  farther  support  of  the  conclusion  w^hich  I  seek  to  establish,  I 
will  cite  an  authority  that  Dr.  Bigelow  will  surely  respect,  as  it  is 
that  of  the  arch-utilitarian  of  our  times,  the  acknowledged  chief  of  the 
clan,  and  confessedly  one  of  the  greatest  thinkers,  as  well  as  one  of 
the  great  scholars,  of  our  day  ;  I  mean  John  S.  Mill.  Speaking  of  the 
Greeks,  he  says:  "They  were  the  beginners  of  nearly  everything,  Chris- 
tianity excepted,  of  which  the  modern  world  makes  its  boast.  They 
were  the  first  people  who  had  a  historical  literature,  as  perfect  of  its 
kind  (though  not  the  highest  kind)  as  their  oratory,  their  poetry,  their 
sculpture,  their  architecture.  They  were  the  founders  of  mathematics, 
of  physics,  of  the  inductive  study  of  politics,  so  early  exemplified  in 
Aristotle,  of  the  philosophy  of  human  nature  and  life.  These  things 
were  effected  in  two  centuries  of  national  existence ;  twenty,  and  up- 
wards, have  since  elapsed,  and  it  is  sad  to  think  how  little,  com'para- 
tively,  has  been  accomplished^ 

As  early  as  the  time  of  the  kings,  Rome  seems  to  have  been  as 
thoroughly  drained  by  common  sewers,  of  marvellous  size  and  sohdity 
of  workmanship,  as  the  best  of  our  modern  cities.  Before  the  age  of 
the  emperors,  its  magnificent  aqueducts,  some  of  them  still  in  use,  gave 
it  a  better  supply  of  pure  water  than  any  modern  city  had  thirty  years 
ago,  and  better  than  London  has  now  ;  wdiile  the  number  and  magnifi- 
cence of  its  public  baths  indicate  that  its  inhabitants  higlily  prized 
the  virtue  of  cleanliness.    Their  roads  were  so  skilfully  and  solidly 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


21 


constructed,  that,  after  being  two  thousand  years  in  use,  their  remains 
still  challenge  the  admiration  of  modern  engineers.  Their  masonry 
and  brick-work  are  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  the  best  constructions  of 
our  own  day.  The  arts  of  agriculture,  ship-building,  tanning,  and 
metallurgy  were  highly  developed  among  them,  and  they  furnished 
the  models  of  some  of  our  most  graceful  forms  of  parlor  furniture. 
Indeed,  to  one  who  has  strolled  through  the  streets  and  buildings  of 
Pompeii,  and  inspected  the  collections  in  the  Royal  Museum  at  Na- 
ples, where  the  kitchen  utensils  and  contents  of  the  shops  of  this 
disinterred  city  have  been  brought  together,  or  visited  the  remains  of 
the  magnificent  villas  that  once  studded  the  coast  around  Baiae  and 
Cape  Misenum,  the  assertion,  that  the  ancients  had  made  little  prog- 
ress in  the  useful  arts,  and  that  in  their  "  domestic  habits  they  were 
primitive,  destitute,  and  uncleanly,"  will  appear  equally  amusing  and 
extravagant.  If  it  be  answered  that  these  comforts  and  luxuries, 
after  all,  belonged  only  to  the  privileged  few,  and  afford  little  indica- 
tion of  the  number  and  welfare  of  the  bulk  of  the  people,  I  reply  by 
pointing  to  the  number  and  condition  of  those  who  are  emphatically 
called  the  "  dangerous  classes  "  in  London,  Liverpool,  Glasgow,  and 
New  York,  to  the  dens  of  filth  and  wretchedness  which  they  inhabit, 
and  to  the  social  state  of  three-fourths  of  the  Irish  people,  and  ask,  if 
your  boastful  modern  civilization  has  much  reason  to  plume  itself  on 
the  comparison  ? 

I  have  occupied.  Sir,  too  much  of  the  Academy's  time,  and  far  more 
than  would  have  been  necessary,  if  the  question  had  concerned  only 
the  relative  merits  of  ancient  and  modern  literature  and  science.  My 
object  has  been  to  plead  the  cause  not  merely  of  "  Classical,"  but  of 
"  liberal  studies,"  —  of  that  broad  and  generous  culture  of  all  the 
faculties,  which  is  nowhere  even  attempted  save  in  our  Colleges  and 
Universities,  and  of  which  Latin  and  Greek  form  a  large  and  neces- 
sary part,  but  by  no  means  the  whole.  Dr.  Bigelow's  argument 
seemed  to  me  directed  not  merely  against  Classical,  but  against  all 
literature  ;  against,  not  merely  the  moral  and  abstruse  sciences,  but 
all  science  whatever,  which  does  not  directly  promote  man's  outward 
comfort  and  material  well-being;  against  not  this  or  that  special 
scheme  of  education,  but  any  comprehensive  course  of  general  studies. 
But  in  view  of  some  of  the  ominous  tendencies  of  the  age,  which  are 
nowhere  so  fully  and  darkly  developed  as  in  our  own  land  ;  in  view 
of  these  materialistic  and  fatalistic  doctrines,  which  seem  already 
the  most  popular  among  students  in  most  departments  of  natural  his- 


22 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


tory  and  physical  science  ;  in  view  of  the  accursed  thirst  for  gold,  and 
the  frenzied  passion  for  luxury  and  ostentation,  which  are  debasing 
the  morals  of  industry  and  commerce,  and  corrupting  the  tone  of  our 
politics,  till  many  have  come  almost  to  despair  of  the  republic ;  in 
view  of  the  ignominy  of  some  of  our  large  municipal  governments, 
and  the  want  of  either  character  or  ability  in  our  Congress,  it  seems 
to  me,  that  he  who  attacks  the  cause  of  liberal  education,  and  thereby 
so  far  tries  to  lessen  the  number,  diminish  the  influence,  and  benumb 
the  powers  of  that  class  of  independent,  educated,  and  thoughtful  men, 
who  alone  are  competent,  humanly  speaking,  to  resist  these  debasing 
tendencies  and  uphold  the  cause  of  integrity,  learning,  and  truth,  is,  in 
fact,  though  unwittingly,  striking  a  death-blow  against  the  chief  agen- 
cies and  supports  of  American  civilization. 


APPENDIX. 


THE  ABUSE  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  GRAMMAE. 


If  a  tolerable  proficiency  in  Latin  and  Greek  could  be  acquired  only  by 
devoting  eight  or  ten  wearisome  months  exclusively  to  studying  the  grammar 
of  each  of  these  languages,  I  should  not  have  a  word  to  say  in  defence  of 
Classical  learning.  Such  an  employment  of  time  appears  to  me  not  only 
injudicious  and  unnecessary,  but  almost  sinful.  It  seems  of  late  to  have 
been  forgotten  among  us,  that  grammar  at  best  is  only  a  subsidiary  science, 
a  knowledge  of  it  being  valuable  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  as  a  key  to  the 
meaning  and  structure  of  sentences,  and  thereby  a  necessary  introduction 
to  literature.  Formerly,  we  studied  grammar  in  order  to  read  the  Classics ; 
nowadays,  the  Classics  seem  to  be  studied  only  as  a  means  of  learning 
grammar.  Surely  a  more  efiectual  means  could  not  have  been  invented  of 
rendering  the  pupil  insensible  to  the  beauties  of  the  ancient  poets,  orators, 
and  historians,  of  inspiring  disgust  alike  with  Homer  and  Virgil,  Xenophon 
and  Tacitus,  than  to  make  their  words  mere  pegs  on  which  to  hang  long 
disquisitions  on  the  latest  refinements  in  philology,  and  elaborate  attempts 
to  systematize  euphonic  changes  and  other  free  developments  of  stems  and 
roots.  The  Germans  have  corrupted  philology  as  well  as  philosophy  by 
their  ponderous  metaphysics;  and  their  latest  theories  and  technicalities 
have  been  imported  into  our  school  grammars,  an  acquaintance  with  them 
being  made  a  condition  precedent  to  admission  to  College.  A  foreigner 
would  make  slow  progress  in  learning  to  read  English,  if  he  should  begin 
with  Home  Tooke's  Diversions  of  Purley  as  a  text-book.  Yet  our  gram- 
mars have  swelled  to  their  present  inordinate  size  in  order  to  include  much 
which  perfectly  resembles  the  speculations  of  Horne  Tooke,  except  that 
they  have  not  the  faintest  claim  to  be  regarded  as  "  Diversions."  An- 
drews and  Stoddard's  Latin  Grammar  covers  about  four  hundred  closely 
printed  pages,  in  type  so  fine  as  to  be  injurious  to  the  eyesight ;  Hadley's  or 
Crosby's  Greek  Grammar  contains  nearly  as  much.  Instructors  complain, 
and  with  some  reason,  that  the  candidates  whom  they  offer  for  admission  to 
College  are  liable  to  be  conditioned,  as  the  phrase  is,  or  declared  to  be 
insufiiciently  instructed  in  grammar,  to  the  great  injury  of  their  teacher's 


24  APPENDIX. 

reputation,  if  they  have  not  committed  to  memory,  and  been  thoroughly 
drilled  in  explaining  and  applying,  every  paragraph  of  this  vast  collection 
of  grammatical  theories  and  niceties. 

Over  thirty  years  ago,  a  small  abridgment  of  Mr.  Edward  Everett's 
translation  of  Buttmann's  Greek  Grammar,  comprising,  to  the  best  of  my 
recollection,  not  more  than  one  hundred  and  eighty  openly  printed  pages, 
was  accepted  as  a  sufficient  qualification  for  admission  to  the  Freshman 
class;  and  the  amount  of  Latin  Grammar  required  was  proportionately 
small.  Yet,  at  that  period,  the  quantity  of  Latin  and  Greek  studied  by 
undergraduates  was  at  least  one-third  more  than  what  is  now  required  of 
them.  That  this  amount  was  not,  in  one  sense,  so  well  studied  then  as 
now, —  that  is,  that  the  student  did  not  acquire  so  much  minute  philological 
information,  —  may  be  readily  admitted.  But  in  the  ability,  at  the  time  of 
graduation,  to  read  and  enjoy  the  Latin  and  Greek  authors,  he  was  consid- 
erably in  advance,  as  I  believe,  of  our  recent  graduates.  He  had  command 
of  a  larger  vocabulary,  had  profited  by  more  experience  in  disentangling 
difficult  constructions,  had  stored  his  memory  with  a  larger  number  of  pithy 
phrases,  gnomic  sentences,  and  scraps  of  verse,  and  had  been  less  injured 
by  the  indiscriminate  use  of  translations.  Classical  learning  seems  to  me 
to  have  steadily  declined  in  this  country  of  late  years,  in  respect  both 
to  the  number  of  its  votaries  and  to  its  estimation  with  the  public  at  large, 
just  in  proportion  as  its  professors  and  teachers  have  diminished  the  time 
and  effort  bestowed  on  reading  the  Classics,  in  order  to  enforce  more  minute 
attention  to  the  mysteries  of  Greek  accentuation  and  the  metaphysics  of  the 
subjunctive  mood.  He  will  do  most  to  revive  it  who  shall  be  the  first  to 
publish,  in  a  volume  of  not  more  than  three  hundred  openly  printed  pages, 
all  the  grammatical  forms  and  principles  both  of  the  Latin  and  Greek 
languages  which  are  required  to  qualify  a  candidate  for  admission  to  College, 
and  which  will  suffice  even  for  the  undergraduate  studies  of  nine-tenths  of 
the  students.  Those  who  are  ambitious  to  become  Scaligers,  Bentleys,  or 
Porsons,  may  study  the  whole  of  Andrews  and  Stoddard  or  Zumpt,  Kriiger 
or  Buttmann. 


